It is too late when we decide it is too late

When is it too late to start something? Today, I came across this guy called Lew Hollander, who At 82, finished the Hawaii Ironman and held that world record for a while. He has run more than 100 ultramarathons and extreme events. Today, at 94, Lew runs up a hill...

Victory is born in our mind, so is defeat

You must have heard a lot of wisdom along the lines of, “Here is what you should do in your 20s.” Often, one hears things like: Learn aggressively, try things you are scared of, make mistakes Build relationships and network Explore ideas that seem...

The power of simple finance

A Wharton professor, who taught us valuation, once told this story of Merton Miller, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the Miller-Modigliani theorem. At that time, our professor was a student at the University of Chicago, where Miller was also...

If you can’t explain something, don’t do it

A long time back, I was part of an online group of (supposedly) entrepreneurs and investors. About half the chatter in that group was about crypto but there was zero logic in the discussion. Some day people would exult when Bitcoin went up. On other days, they would...

Have a beginner’s mind

I once was interviewing a professional investor who invests in power plants and infrastructure. But when I asked him “What is 1 kilowatt-hour?” he had no idea. Many people swim in the shallows. They make do by talking about high-level stuff, without really...